Obamacare is not the same as Romneycare

Debra J. Saunders, Chronicle Columnist

Updated 2:37 pm, Thursday, October 4, 2012

There are a lot of differences between Obamacare and Romneycare, even though President Obama said that the two plans were based on an "identical model" during the first presidential debate in Denver Wednesday night.

"We've seen this model work very well," said Obama, "in Massachusetts."

President Obama, Romney said, instead of bringing America together, rammed through a bill that garnered no support across the aisle. "Something this big, this important," Romney concluded, "has to be done on a bipartisan basis."

Note this: Romney had to work with Democrats. They comprised 87 percent of the Massachusetts Legislature. In Obama's first two years in the White House, Democrats controlled the House and enjoyed a large majority in the Senate. Obama was able to pass his health care bill without courting GOP votes. Still, it was a poor choice with consequences.

Obama sulked that his plan was based on a Republican idea, which begs the question: Why did he fail to win a single Republican vote?

If he cannot sell Republicans on what he says is a Republican idea, then what good is he?

Despite what the president said, Romneycare and Obamacare are very different. Romney worked to promote flexibility; Obama and the Democrats imposed uniformity.

While Romney worked to limit mandates in Massachusetts health care, Obama and a Democratic Congress president threw into the Affordable Care Act a host of goodies - such as an end to co-payments for "preventive care." Employers now will have to pay for services for which workers used to chip in.

This administration has refined passing the hat. With Congress, the president enacted mandates - "free" birth control, adult children can stay on their parents' insurance plans up to age 26 - for which Washington pols do not have to pay. The private sector pays.

They don't even have to pretend that Congress will have to pay in the future.

"If you've got health insurance," Obama said of his plan, "it doesn't mean a government takeover."

It's a government takeover without government responsibility for the bill.

Early in the debate, Romney quipped that Obama seems to have levied an "economy tax." Well put. What employer wants to hire new workers when that employer knows Washington pols are confident they can add new mandates to the package at no cost to themselves?

Even before Obamacare goes into full effect, it's clear that this model cannot, as the president promised, "get the cost down so it's more affordable." That's not possible - do the math.

Now that everyone knows that Washington can find services dear to politically important groups of voters, and make other people pay for them, there is no controlling health care costs.